equire twenty more to
make it good: very well, then, tell them. Ever have a due regard to the
sanctity of oaths; this you will evince by never using them to support a
fiction, except on high and solemn occasions, such as when you are about
to be invested with some public dignity. But avoid any approach to a
superstitious veneration for them: it is to keep those thin-skinned and
impracticable individuals who are infected by this failing from the
management of public affairs, that they have been, in great measure,
devised.

Never break a promise, unless bound to do so by a previous one; and
promise yourselves from this time forth never to do anything that will put
you to inconvenience.

Never take what does not belong to you. For, as a young pupil who formerly
attended these lectures pathetically expressed himself, he furnishing, at
the time, in his own person, an illustration of the maxim--

"Him as prigs wot isn't his'n,
Ven 'a's cotch must go to pris'n!"

But what is it that does _not_ belong to you? I answer, whatever you
cannot take with impunity. Never fail, however, to appropriate that which
the law does not protect. This is a duty which you owe to yourselves. And
in order that you may thoroughly carry out this principle, procure, if you
can, a legal education; because there are a great many flaws in titles,
agreements, and the like, the knowledge of which will often enable you to
lay hands upon various kinds of property to which at first sight you might
appear to have no claim. Should you ever be so circumstanced as to be
beyond the control of the law, you will, of course, be able to take
whatever you want; because there will be nothing then that will _not_
belong to you. This, my friends, is a grand moral principle; and, as
illustrative of it, we have an example (as schoolboys say in their themes)
in Alexander the Great; and besides, in all other conquerors that have
ever lived, from Nimrod down to Napoleon inclusive.

Speak evil of no one behind his back, unless you are likely to get
anything by so doing. On the contrary, have a good word to say, if you
can, of everybody, provided that the person who is praised by you is
likely to be informed of the circumstance. And, the more to display the
generosity of your disposition, never hesitate, on convenient occasions,
to bestow the highest eulogies on those who do not deserve them.

Be abstemious--in eating and drinking at your own expense; but when you
fe